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Well, the summer is in full swing. The humidity is at an all time high. The sun is shining brightly while I run around at the beach, enjoying seeing people in bathing suits that they probably shouldn’t be wearing. But you know what? I don’t have a hat to protect me from the dastardly UV rays from the aforementioned sun. I wish I had a blue corduroy Final Destination 2 fisherman hat to help me out……..

Oh, what luck! Thanks to eBay, that is indeed a promotional fisherman hat from the movie Final Destination 2. I’m always amazed at the kind of horror movie promotional items that pop up on there. But anyway, if you are indeed a fan of this movie (to be honest, it was a solid sequel) – then now’s your chance to support it and grab this hat HERE. Starting price of $25 with an option to ‘Make An Offer‘, so that’s always fun. Enjoy and always remember to wear sunscreen and help prevent skin cancer!

Ahhhh – The 80’s. A glorious time when if you were on the fence about seeing a horror movie, luckily you had TV spots like the one below to sway you into plunking down your hard-earned money. Did you ever see the 1986 movie Critters or maybe you haven’t and still want to? This will steer you in the right direction! And it’s not phony. At all!

Now, to be fair – I actually like Critters. But I don’t necessarily know if it’s a “scream through the whole thing” kind of horror movie. It is true that they love to party too though! But anyway, TV spots like this were the norm back then – and not just for horror movies. Looking back at them now, it’s a nice slice of nostalgia and things like this always take me back to a simpler time in the horror world. Kudos to whoever uploads this content btw, because I love having my ‘memory lane’ horror brain jarred from time to time.

I for one, am very excited about the upcoming revamped movie version of Stephen King’s IT. I’ve been reading the novel to better prepare myself, and luckily there has been tons of new merchandise popping up to give the anticipation a little boost. Case in point, the brand new Funko Pop! figures that were announced and revealed this week. There will be 4 in total as of right now: A regular orange-haired Pennywise that holds a paper boat, one that holds a balloon (Hot Topic Exclusive), a special ‘Chase’ version with a more sepia color tone, and then the Walmart Exclusive of Pennywise……….in a wig!

Oh my shit. Now at first glance, I would expect some My Chemical Romance or Fall Out Boy to be playing while I look at this figure. Emo Pennywise is pretty rad. I guess. But anyway, this is indeed a big scene from the trailer (and movie) for IT where Pennywise is wearing a wig – masking himself until he reveals his true self to The Loser’s Club. Did it need it’s own figure? Ehhhhh – maybe not. It does make me want to go buy some Pantene shampoo or something though. Regardless of my feelings for this particular Funko Pop!, I am digging the other ones and succumbed to the pressure and bought a ‘Chase’ version on eBay yesterday. I wouldn’t mind a figure based on The Leper from the book btw. Now get ready for IT, as it floats into theaters on September 8th! That bad pun was free of charge.

Not really an easy way to start this one, and I honestly never really write any kind of ‘In Memorium‘ posts….but this is for George FUCKING Romero. So if anyone deserves a little of my horror sympathy and respect, it’s this man.

Anybody who knows me knows that I have pretty much been living and breathing horror since I was about 8-years-old. But how did it start? The simple, yet obvious, answer: George Romero. I remember sitting in my Grandmother’s kitchen flipping through the channels (literally turning the dial, which is what you had to do back then) on her black and white TV. And I stumbled upon an airing of Night Of The Living Dead. I remember how much it stuck with me. Not just the look of it, the characters, and the music – but the fact that zombies were mesmerizing. Shortly after watching it, I also remember being back at my house and looking out my living room window constantly……looking for zombies. I had nightmares. A lot of nightmares. But you know what? I loved it.

When I was old enough, I was able to finally watch Dawn Of The Dead and Day Of The Dead. Equally blown away as I was by it’s predecessor, George Romero was not only iconic for the introduction of ‘his’ zombies – but also for the social commentary strewn throughout his movies. He took risks, and had his finger on the pulse of what was going on in the world around the time of all of his films. These weren’t just zombie movies with guts and gore (although that was much appreciated) – they were zombie movies that were actually saying something. Casting minorities into leading roles wasn’t necessarily the norm back then, especially in horror movies. George paved the way, and even has had influence on films as recent as Jordan Peele’s 2017 hit Get Out.

We have lost a good one, people. Not just a horror icon, but an icon in general. Romero was set to produce an upcoming film titled Road Of The Dead, which at this point is probably the final project he was involved in. The Walking Dead is a huge mainstream success – and if and when you watch it, think about the influence of George Romero. True fact: George hated the ‘fast zombie’ craze. So kudos to The Walking Dead for staying true to his original zombie traits (even though he had spoken out against the show). Aside from Romero’s zombie films, he also directed the underrated vampire film Martin. And don’t forget about Creepshow (an all-time fav), The Crazies, Monkey Shines, and The Dark Half. He will always be remembered as ‘The Godfather Of Zombies’ though, so do yourself a favor and honor his memory by watching any or all of his films this week. A true horror legend is gone, but never forgotten.

I blame the new HBO documentary series The Defiant Ones for this post. Not that that’s a bad thing – because it’s actually a stellar 4-part film that showcases the ups and downs of producers and innovators Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine. And in doing so, it goes to great lengths to make you want to seek out their music after you watch it. Which is what I ended up doing by revisiting Dr. Dre’s album Chronic 2001. And upon doing so, I listened to this song right here:

Now, any true horror fan will recognize that piano melody as John Carpenter’s theme from Halloween. Granted, this is Dr. Dre’s take on it in his song ‘Murder Ink’ – but it’s still the Halloween theme nonetheless and always cool to see it pop up in a hip hop song, or song in general. Ice-T also sampled it for his song ‘The Tower’ from his Original Gangster album. But all of this got me to thinking about the other iconic Halloween franchise music that needs to be sampled…….The ‘Silver Shamrock’ jingle from Halloween III: Season Of The Witch!

It could be that I’m just giddy because it’s Friday, but somebody needs to sample this soon, right? Anyone??? Ok, it might just be me. But anyway, maybe I’ll make it my mission to find a producer willing to take the plunge down the Silver Shamrock rabbit hole and create some music magic. Now if only I could find someone to get on the phone and make some calls for me to make this thing happen……………

I am a self-proclaimed He-Man junkie. Growing up, I pretty much had every figure and every playset, including the dangerous (according to my Mom) Slime Pit. But one of the playsets that got lost in the shuffle was The Evil Horde’s ‘Fright Zone‘!

Well that was fun. I’m actually thinking of grabbing one of these off of eBay soon just based off of the nostalgia alone. I don’t have kids, so I would be playing with it by myself. Don’t judge. But anyway, I was always more in favor of the ‘bad guys’ in the He-Man collection – so I gravitated towards things like The Slime Pit and Snake Mountain before I would go to Castle Grayskull. Which is why I loved the Fright Zone so much. And I could actually control the giant snake with my hand and gobble up all of the good guys. If you need any more proof as to why Fright Zone is amazing, just look at that kid’s face below in the pic! He’s having a blast. And how about that hair too?!

On the low, I kind of enjoyed 2013’s Curse Of Chucky…..and mostly for it’s return to Child’s Play true horror roots. Gone were the over-the-top jokes and Three Stooges schtick (which I liked up to the point of Seed Of Chucky), allowing Don Mancini to finally get back to making Chucky somewhat scary again. Even though it pretty much went straight to VOD/DVD, Curse Of Chucky was a critical and fan success….thus spawning the new sequel Cult Of Chucky which recently got a brand new trailer:

Definitely has the straight-to-video vibe going on, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing. The ‘horror’ element is definitely back for this sequel, as is the original Andy (Alex Vincent) and Jennifer Tilly too! What isn’t back is Chucky’s original face. My biggest gripe with the trailer is that Chucky just looks……off. There is definitely some CGI involved with his facial movements which is worrisome (and yes, the stitches seem to be gone) – but I will reserve judgement until I see the final product. As a whole, I’m excited for Cult Of Chucky because it seems to harken back to the days of mindless/fun horror. Look for it to hit VOD and DVD/Blu-ray on October 3rd, just in time for Halloween!

Happy 4th Of July, everybody! And what better way to celebrate this joyous day than with a potato sack race. Oh sure, nobody really does potato sack races anymore – but they did back in 1996 in the horror movie Uncle Sam! And what a potato sack race it was. There were thrills, chills, tumbles, and beheadings. Just how every potato sack race should be. I feel like I’m saying potato sack race a lot. Hey guess what? Issac Hayes was in this movie. Now here’s a clip of the world famous potato sack race that I constantly keep mentioning:

Yet another post about a horror movie that’s really making me feel my age. Polaroid cameras were all the rage when I was growing up in the 80’s. For you youngsters out there, it was a camera that would instantly print out a pic after you took it – and then for added effect, you would shake the pic to make sure it came out right. Hence the term ‘Shake it like a Polaroid picture‘ from Outkast! So anyway, there’s a new horror movie called Polaroid:

WTF did I just watch? Ok (deep breath) – I get it. Horror movies are popular. And horror movies are relatively easy to make. But the more that crap like this gets put into actual theaters, the more that it stains the ‘horror movie; name in general. Nothing about this looks original (Goosebumps, anyone?), and from a technical standpoint it looks so awful that I’m finding myself wanting to rather stare at the jar of peanut butter on my desk instead of watching that trailer again.

But anyway – I’m sure Polaroid will make some money (key word ‘some’), and the studio will stand behind it. But me – I’m more interested in going onto eBay right now, buy an actual vintage Polaroid camera, and take pictures of that jar of peanut butter that’s on my desk.

To quote Twilight Zone: The Movie…….do you wanna see something reallllllly scary? Well, I will make you wait a little bit because that’s what I do. Wayyyyy back in 1982 when I was a 6-year-old boy trying to find my way through life – my parents bought me an Atari gaming system. It blew my mind at first. And I remember one of the first games I got besides Yars’ Revenge was Sssnake. Not to be confused with the 70’s horror movie of the almost identical same name.

Frightening! Just look at that snake. He definitely means business. It kind of looks like him and the guy on the cover were playing a game of Kerplunk before the guy decided to shoot a big laser load into the snake’s mouth. But enough about the cover art – how is the gameplay and will you need to sleep with the light on tonight after you see it? If I do remember correctly, this game is not for the faint of heart – so please use caution when viewing it and please send the smaller children out of the room:

Yeeesh. The only thing frightening about that is that it could possibly give you a seizure. This game should have been called Sssnore. Ok – my work is done here.